Hell Bent For Metal moves into 2022 by taking on a major, pressing question: Which subgenre is the gayer, black metal or power metal? It's a question that has baffled many and worried more, so HBFM attempts to settle the debate.
Is it the subgenre that is fond of elaborate costumes, large amounts of make-up, phallic sword-waving, and melodramatically over-the-top stage shows or… actually, that describes both of them, doesn't it? And therein lies the problem.
It's a hotly contested discussion, with both Tom and Matt veering back and forth in their assessments, and the competition goes right down to the wire. But then, there were always too many plus points for each side for this to be settled easily, weren't there?
The first Camp Classic of 2022 is "Destroyer Of Senses" by Shadows Fall, from their 2002 album 'The Art Of Balance'. It's a Massachusetts metalcore classic that had a huge impact on the elder of the two hosts, but it's not just Tom this one has clear queer relevance for, as Matt finds meaning of his own without any trouble.
The meaning within Brian Fair's lyrics seems pretty clear, and leads in itself to a discussions about coping mechanisms to blot out some of the challenges and noise facing queer folk, and about the LGBT+ community's difficulties with alcohol misuse. But there are also some rather more metaphorical points to be found, as Matt sees his own experiences in the lyrics that are clearly not what were originally thought about when the song was written.
There's also a discussion of that impact the record had on Tom, as he recalls how hearing "Destroyer Of Senses" and, subsequently, the full album woke him up from a backward-facing musical ennui and helped him both expand his musical horizons, and follow new metal music much more closely than he had previously.
There's still time to visit the Hate Crew Gaybar to make some new additions to the jukebox, as the hosts correct their inevitable oversights by putting albums they missed in 2021 into the jukebox. First up is with 'Noktvrn', the fifth album by German dynamic black metallers Der Weg Einer Freiheit, the follow-up to their much-lauded 2017 album 'Finiseterre'. And the second and final entry for this week is 'To Overtake | To Overcome', the fifth album by the mysterious, anonymous atmospheric black metal collective Voidsphere.
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